Friday, November 18, 2011

A short walk into history

This afternoon, I went for what is now my shortest "travel" in this blog - about six blocks, from my own tiny interior world here in Center City Philadelphia....

to some great views from the 31st floor of the Hopkinson House at nearby Washington Square, with ones such as this, looking west to the "Center City" skyline, perhaps being the signature images....

but other close-ups and panoramas as well, and a glimpse into the passionate interests of my host high up in the Hopkinson House - Joe Vendetti, an 87-year old native of Philadelphia seen here

who was born and raised in South Philadelphia and has lived near the top of this Center City high-rise for four years now. I met Joe earlier this year, after we had already vaguely known each other as we began to talk in Washington Square about a mutual interest, but much greater for Joe, in one of Philadelphia's greatest citizens - Stephen Girard (1750-1831) - a banking and shipping tycoon and founder of a private school named Girard College to which Joe has become devoted even though he did not attend it, but was inspired to study the school and its founder by a well-remembered and now deceased Girard College graduate for whom he worked in the 1970's and 80's.

Before briefly touching on what is sometimes known here in Philadelphia as "Girardiana", Joe was generous in bringing me back to views I had already seen on an equally clear but warmer day earlier this year, then without my camera, so here's a sampling, from Washington Square just to the north....

Independence Hall's tower two blocks to the northeast....

the restrained "Art Deco" elevations of the N.W,. Ayer Building on the west side of the Square....

and "close-ups" (or what passes with my basic "digital") of landmarks in Joe's Society Hill neighborhood, including children on the playground of the nearby McCall School to the south as school was letting out...

the Mother Bethel Church, an 1889 Romanesque structure with special importance in Black history at the center of this view...

"Old St. Peter's Church" (also near the center, just below), now culminating its 250th year as both an Anglican and Episcopalian congregation....

the Holy Trinity Church immediately to the southeast of the Hopkinson House, including its churchyard where Stephen Girard was once buried (before reinternment at the beautiful "Founders' Hall" of Girard College)....

and the historic Pennsylvania Hospital, a dark part of Girard's life - and more so that of his wife Mary - very close to the southwest of Joe's apartment....

On a wider field, the top of the Hopkinson House and Joe's balcony on its south side afforded a panorama of "South Philly" and "South Jersey", including the Walt Whitman Bridge between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, seen above the center here....

and the bridges and the oil refineries somewhat visible (with enlargement) near the top center of this view....

After seeing these cityscapes, I learned a tiny bit about Joe's interests - sometimes transformed into mini-crusades, of which his first and foremost one may have recently been to honor the memory of Mary Lum Girard, whose experience as Stephen Girard's wife may constitute one of the few black marks on his memory.

Girard has been legendized for several reasons, such as his helping Philadelphians during this city's most infamous epidemic - a devastating plague of yellow fever in 1793, when his already solid wealth could have allowed him an easy ticket out of the hot and very sick city that summer. Additionally, Girard has been revered for the huge funds he gave to the nation to fight the War of 1812 and, less than 20 years later, the legacy of his then incredibly large $7 million will, one million of which was given to start Girard College. This private institution, a K-12 boarding school, began life as a shining example of charity and later survived a rough generation when one easily guessable word within the type of students Girard's will would admit - "poor white male orphans" - threw it into a collision course with the Civil Rights movement and a successful quest to open it up to Blacks as well.

Returning to Mary Girard, her noted husband placed her in the mental ward of the Pennsylvania Hospital - I believe in 1786, and despite her returning to good mental health (my account here is not "vetted" with whatever version Joe may have), he kept her there until her death in 1811 (again, if my memory is right). It has often been said that Girard did not let her out because he was unfaithful to her, and Joe today at least commented that "everybody had mistresses in those days", but whatever the verdict on this often charitable millionaire, Joe has deeply believed that the Hospital should remember her in some way.

One of his actions over time has been to stand witness for her outside of PA. Hospital wearing this shirt, seen here along with my placement of an old classic biography of Girard.....

Joe noted with amusement that at least one person responded to this message with "Why would they (PA. Hosp.) refuse pizza?" (as in Tombstone Pizza) and he noted, I'd guess with some pride, that his quest has helped to bring the current executive director of the Hospital to commit to a plaque for Mary Girard, probably being put up at the Hospital in the next year and being paid for by Girard's Class of 1955, also responsible for the plaque noting his aforementioned burial at the Holy Trinity Church (seen above)....

Joe has also kept Stephen Girard alive in ways including one I had not known to exist, such as following this advice....

with this and I presume other sheets, at a loss, but a gain for the fabulously wealthy banker.....

About two years ago, Joe and his daughter had the pleasure of having lunch "across from the Eiffel Tower" with Philippe Girard-Foley, a lawyer and several-times great nephew of Girard who apparently took a 3-hour train ride to Paris to meet them about two years ago. [From a brief look-up here, it appears that Girard-Foley's community of St.Pierre d'Oleron (noted by Joe) is not that far from Girard's native city of Bordeaux, and that his law degrees include one from the University of Pennsylvania here in Philadelphia.(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Pierre-d%27Ol%C3%A9ron and

Joe has been recovering from a stroke but still enjoys life and continues to go beyond Stephen Girard in his pursuits, with another big one being recognition for Italian-Americans interned here in the U.S. during World War II, a kind of step-sister to the much better known imprisonment of Japanese-Americans. Joe brought out the simple graphics of another shirt.....

as well as offering a DVD of a documentary on this lesser-known World War II story and information on a book "Una Storia Segreta" (A Secret Story), subtitled "The Secret History of Italian American Evacuation and Internment During World War II", and written by a California author, Lawrence DiStasi.

Joe offered the basic overview which so many have also concluded that "our government didn't handle it right...they panicked", in regards to confining aliens in general, and remembered his uncle Felix, a shoemaker, who had to carry a resident alien card while his son fought at Guadalcanal, with Joe adding "that's an injustice". Joe himself said that he served in the Army from April 27, 1942 to his discharge on June 9, 1945.

When he began to refer to himself as "we...." my curiosity as to that was partly answered with the rough sense that he does it partly to see himself as helping others with less selfishness or self-centeredness and at one point said "you can see how involved we are...win, lose or draw, you know we tried." It was hopefully with complete acceptance that he added that "the average person has no interest at all; they think I'm crazy, but that's ok."

At one point today, Joe asked "am I going to fast for you?" and, knowing I had ostensibly come to photograph the views, said "you got more than you bargained for".